The answer to Wordle #993 was

EARLY: At a time in advance of the usual or expected event.

Source: Wiktionary contributors, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected and lightly formatted from Wiktionary; long entries may be shortened.

Word difficulty: Easy

Why it may be easier: five different letters, at least two vowels and none of Q, Z, X, J, K, V or W.

Compare past puzzle difficulty →

How difficult was it for the solver?

In a replay of past puzzles, Wordle #993 scores 67/100 for solver difficulty (tricky).

52 Possible answers after CRANE
31 Possible answers after SLATE
190 Possible answers after ADIEU
4 Guesses in the solver replay

This compares past puzzles under the same solver settings; it does not measure how players performed. Compare more puzzles →

Wordle #993, measured

This section compares EARLY's solver-difficulty percentile, first-guess results for ten familiar openers, and opt-in player reports. Each number identifies its dataset.

Solver difficulty, as a percentile

67/100

This score is a percentile, not an opinion. Under the site's fixed solver settings, EARLY measured harder for the solver than about 67% of all 1,907 recorded answers to date. Its rating is tricky. The example solver route takes four turns; CRANE, SLATE and ADIEU leave a large group.

Solver pressure ranks the answer within the pool; it does not measure player performance. The opener table compares first-guess results, and the contributed ratings report player results.

CRANE, SLATE and ADIEU benchmark

TARSE left the fewest candidates: its first-guess feedback left 4 of the 2,374 words in the site's working answer pool. At the other end, AUDIO left 442 candidates, about 110 times as many. The vowel-heavy probes ADIEU and AUDIO revealed comparatively little here. Vowel coverage helps only when the answer's vowels are still in doubt.

First-guess feedback each opener would have received against EARLY, and how many answer-pool words would still match it
OpenerFirst-guess feedbackAnswers still possible
TARSE TARSE 4
SALET SALET 8
RAISE RAISE 28
SLATE SLATE 31
TRACE TRACE 42
STARE STARE 47
CRANE CRANE 52
ARISE ARISE 61
ADIEU ADIEU 190
AUDIO AUDIO 442

“Answers still possible” counts the words in the site's 2,374-word working answer pool whose feedback would match that opener exactly. This is pattern arithmetic, not a simulation. A smaller number means the opener left fewer possible answers after the first guess. It does not describe later turns.

Contributed player ratings

Not enough contributed games to publish player figures for this puzzle. Per-puzzle numbers appear only after at least 10 opt-in games arrive. See how the Observatory collects and publishes player data →

What did you get?

Tap your result to compare it with contributed games. Your choice stays in this browser and is not sent anywhere.

1 Suppressed
2 Suppressed
3 Suppressed
4 Suppressed
5 Suppressed
6 Suppressed
X Suppressed

The bars pool all 26 contributed games across every completed puzzle. The Observatory does not publish per-puzzle guess distributions below its sample threshold, so this is the broadest available comparison. “Suppressed” marks a low-count cell.

Solver replay

One route our solver takes from its usual opening word to EARLY.

The solver reaches the answer in 4 guesses.

Common questions

What was the Wordle answer for March 8, 2024?
The Wordle answer for March 8, 2024 (puzzle #993) was EARLY.
What does EARLY mean?
EARLY: At a time in advance of the usual or expected event.
Why was Wordle #993 tricky?
EARLY is rated easy for estimated word difficulty. Why it may be easier: five different letters, at least two vowels and none of Q, Z, X, J, K, V or W.

Keep solving and playing